Wild Wicklow

Hello!

This past week was Reading Week, which is basically a study week. I spent the week studying for Folklore, which is my first final tomorrow at 9 AM. All of my finals are essay exams, which really sucks. On all of them we have the option of picking like 2 questions out of like 7 or 8 and they say it should be an hour for each question. Yeah, right. I highly doubt I can write for an hour straight!

A lot of international students went traveling around Europe over Reading Week, such as Kathleen and the other Eau Claire girls, but I just took what is most likely one of my last trips around Ireland of the semester. It's so sad to think that, but the money situation is looking bleaker and bleaker with each trip to the ATM.

On Friday morning I boarded a bus to Dublin with Katie Roz, Amanda, Erin, Liz, and Amanda's friend Carolyn from Virginia. As usual, I passed out on the bus pretty quickly. We got to Dublin mid-afternoon and went to Carroll's, an Irish gift store with really good prices. All semester we had been saying "Eh, we don't need all that crap" but with the end of the semester quickly approaching we went and stocked up on all kind of Irish memorabilia. I got a Guinness pint glass (I was too chicken to snatch one from a pub) a shot glass, coffee mug, and a canvas bag. Next, we were off to find out hostel called Barnacles, which was in the Temple Bar area. It was a pretty nice hostel--we had a 6 person room so no other creepers! We also had a full bathroom in our room which was really nice. It was still only 18 Euro for the night which isn't bad at all. Ironically though, I didn't bring any shower stuff for this trip since it was just an overnight and this was the first hostel I'd stayed in with a full bathroom in our room! After getting all checked in and dropping off our stuff, we headed out to dinner. We ate at a cafe around the corner from the hostel. They had a burger and fry special for 4.50 Euro only! I also got a chocolate milkshake that was absolutely heavenly. After dinner we went to a convenience store to get some snacks and stuff and then we went back to the hostel. It poured on Friday and I was glad to have shoes that didn't have holes in them. What I really should have been wearing were the rain boots, or as they are known here, "wellies" but I always forget about them! The one time they got serious use was back in Dingle. Anyway, we headed back to Barnacles and decided to check out a movie from the front desk. We ended up getting The Departed (Irish theme!) Katie, Amanda and Carolyn hadn't seen it. Being the Leo buff I am, had seen it once or twice...or more perhaps :) We went up to the common room and popped it in. A couple of guys walked in later and were like "Hey...they're watching the Departed" and sat down and watched it with us.

SATURDAY
Katie got us all startled when she shot out of bed and freaked out that we had overslept. I was really confused because like 3 of us set our alarms so don't know how that could have been possible but it definitely got my heart pounding! We quickly figured out we still had like another half hour or so to sleep, and then we got ready, ate some breakfast in the hostel kitchen, and then checked out. It was only a short walk to where the tour bus picked us up.

Our tour we had booked was called Wild Wicklow and it was supposed to be one of the better tours of the Wicklow mountains. Our bus driver was really funny. He asked if anyone that morning was hungover and a few people raised their hands, including a girl in a brown Northface shirt. Well, shortly after taking off, she went up and got what definitely looked like a barf bag. We stopped at Dun Laoghaire (Dun Leery) port and looked around for a little while, but after getting back on the bus Liz and I looked over and she was leaning over the bag. Rough morning.

Dun Laoghaire

After getting back on the bus and heading out in to the mountains, the girl who threw up, who I nicknamed Barfy McBarfster and will refer to her as that from now on, move up to the front seat. Pretty soon, though the bus suddenly stopped, and Barfy was gone, and I presume she was throwing up on the side of the road. What a terrible day to be taking a tour of mountains with winding roads!

Well, we finally got to the Wicklow Mountain National Park. It was beautiful. The weather was still cloudy and rainy, but I wasn't too disheartened. It's Ireland after all, and I think we got super lucky this semester with not having too much rain on our trips! To give a background of the park, it is used a lot for making movies like Braveheart, Leap Year, a few other movies he named off I'd never heard of, and of course, P.S. I Love You. The big joke this weekend was that we were hoping to find Gerard Butler. We also saw the estate of a member of the Guinness family, a 70-year-old cousin who is also an eligible bachelor!

Guinness Estate

After driving through the mountains some more, we stopped for lunch at a pub in a small little village, the highest village in Ireland. I had vegetable soup and mashed potatoes and a roll. I like the vegetable soup here--it's puree and I just really like that.

Our next stop after lunch was Glendalough. (Glen-duh-lock) The bus driver walked us over to the really old graveyard. He said there are just a small number of people who have yet to die and will be buried in that graveyard, and once they are all buried, the graveyard is done. St. Kevin's Cross was in the graveyard, which is the oldest Celtic cross in Europe. This is when it really started to rain. Then, we had about an hour and a half to explore the Glendalough area ourselves. There are two lakes: the Upper Lake and the Lower Lake. Before heading out to find the upper Lake, I walked through the graveyard and over to the fence where sheep were grazing. I got a few nice pictures, including a really cute one of a lamb!

Glendalough watch tower

We followed the trail through the trees and found the lake. It was so beautiful. It reminded me of my trip through the Hobnailers group at Eau Claire when we went backpacking in the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan.

When we got back on the bus after our time at Glendalough was done, the bus driver had shots of Jameson Whiskey for us (none for himself) I'm not sure if Barfy had one--probably wouldn't have been a good idea. I'm not a huge fan of whiskey, but drank it anyway. Hey,it was free. We headed back to Dublin. It was another fast bus ride for me seeing as I passed out. Lately when I've been falling asleep on buses, my head just falls to the side and it's really uncomfortable!
We had about an hour or so in Dublin before our bus to Limerick left. A few of the girls stopped and got a light supper, but I actually resisted this time and saved a little money. We were back in Limerick at about 9:30. It was a really nice potentially last trip. I haven't been to Ring of Kerry or Killarney yet, but I don't know to do that for cheap. I don't really want to attempt to drive. Even though I went to a lot of places in Ireland, I still feel like there's so much to see!! I can't believe I leave in 16 days. My first final is tomorrow at 9 AM for Folklore, so I better start studying some more.

Cheers!